The Future of Conservative Foreign Policy

By James Joyner

Republicans have lost their historic edge over Democrats. Why George W. Bush might be the key to getting it back.

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivers a foreign policy address in front of Jerusalem's Old City on July 29th, 2012. (Jason Reed/Reuters)

According to both the exit polls
and the pre-election polling, President Obama was widely considered better on
foreign policy than his Republican opponent. The last time that happened was
1964, when Lyndon Johnson carried 44 states, in part on the message that
electing Barry Goldwater would lead to nuclear holocaust.

Obama didn't win the public's
confidence by giving
gifts to urban special interest groups. Rather, he co-opted key parts of
the Republican foreign policy agenda, undermining the attacks that have been
used against his party since the days of Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern.

Mitt Romney campaigned, like every
Republican of the last generation, using the playbook Ronald
Reagan successfully used to defeat Jimmy Carter in 1980. That has
been decreasingly effective on domestic issues and, now, it's failed two
elections in a row on foreign affairs, too.

Domestically, Republicans are
seemingly oblivious to the fact that they've won on most of the
core issues that Reagan championed. Democrats have all but conceded to Grover
Norquist's demand never to raise tax rates again; meanwhile, Republicans are
still running on tax cuts and trying to convince people that even Reagan's top
marginal rate constitutes socialism.

Now, the same thing has happened
on foreign policy.Barack Obama basically continued the post-2006 Bush
foreign policy. We had a surge in Afghanistan, ramped up drone strikes, and
targeted people the president deemed America's enemies -- even if those enemies
were American citizens. And, of course, Obama gave the go order to kill bin Laden. All this from a party that Republicans
have historically portrayed as weak on national security.

Team Romney nonetheless ran the
same campaign Republicans have since at least Nixon's day, claiming that the
Democrats were spineless on foreign policy. Given Obama's record, the charge of
course rang hollow.

If the Democrats keep to their winning
formula, the Republicans need a new playbook. Just as calls for tax cuts are
no longer enough on fiscal issues, platitudes about "strength" are no
longer enough on national security policy.

In recent years, the dominant faction
in the Republican foreign policy establishment since the 9/11 attacks have been
the so-called "neoconservatives," who advocate a policy of vigorous democracy promotion
abroad, through military power if necessary, as the best way to promote
American national security interests and values. The Iraq War debacle severely damaged
this faction's reputation and even President George W. Bush largely turned away
from them after the 2006 midterm defeat in favor of more traditional realist
voices like Condoleeza Rice and Robert Gates.

The Republican Party needs a new
message on foreign policy that is true to the conservative principles of the
base and yet has a broad appeal to the American public. It so happens that one
already exists, has a proven track record of electoral success, and is only
slightly used: the "humble foreign policy" that candidate George
W. Bush espoused during the 2000 campaign but abandoned with the Global War on
Terror and the Iraq invasion.

Bush's
wisdom during the October 12, 2000 debatesis striking in hindsight. "If
we're an arrogant nation," he warned, "they'll resent us; if we're a
humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us. And our nation stands alone
right now in the world in terms of power, and that's why we've got to be
humble, and yet project strength in a way that promotes freedom."

Now, to a large degree, that's
platitude rather than policy prescription. But it's the right mindset from
which to approach policy analysis.

Bush agreed, for example, with the
Clinton administration's actions in the Balkans: "I thought it was in our
strategic interests to keep Milosevic in check because of our relations in
NATO, and that's why I took the position I took. I think it's important for
NATO to be strong and confident. I felt like an unchecked Milosevic would harm
NATO."

At the same time, he observed,
"I'm worried about over committing our military around the world. I want
to be judicious in its use."

In contrast with Kosovo, Bush
declared, "I wouldn't have sent troops to Haiti. I didn't think it was a
mission worthwhile. It was a nation-building mission. And it was not very
successful. It cost us a couple billions of dollars and I'm not sure democracy
is any better off in Haiti than it was before."

More broadly, Bush argued,
"I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world
and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.' We can help. . . . I mean I want
to empower people. I want to help people help themselves, not have government
tell people what to do. I just don't think it's the role of the United States
to walk into a country and say, 'We do it this way; so should you.'"

In short, Bush articulated a
foreign policy centered on the national interests of the United States and its
allies, one that carefully weighed costs and benefits, and that would be humble
in not only its outward face but in its assessment of what the United States
could reasonably achieve. His presidency and the shape of his party's
foreign policy would be much better off had he carried it out.